The Dugong & Seagrass Research Toolkit helps refine research questions and select the most appropriate techniques to answer them. It does this by suggesting the techniques and tools most suitable to the users unique team capacity, budget and timeline.

The Toolkit supports researchers in the process of setting and refining their objectives, while considering overall conservation management goals as well as factors such as time scale, spatial scale, costs, technical capacity and specific on-ground challenges. In addition to collecting general information on dugong and seagrass, the toolkit provides tools and techniques to understand the threats and human community factors that affect dugong and seagrass conservation.

The interactive approach of the toolkit makes it extremely efficient in providing the right kind of guidance, saving researchers, conservation practitioners and marine management agencies time and resources.

It is designed to be easily accessible to researchers and practitioners working in developing countries with limited access to scientific expertise, serving as an efficient and cost-effective method to ensure consistent, comparable and standardized data sets across the dugong range.

$5,000,000

(2016 - 2017)

Project Coordinator

CMS Dugong MoU Secretariat

Supporting Partners

Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD)

Total Abu Al Bukhoosh

Technical Partners

Amanda Hodgson and Christophe Cleguer, Murdoch University

Benjamin Jones and Richard Unsworth, Project Seagrass

Helene Marsh, James Cook University

Josh Donlan, Advanced Conservation Strategies

Len McKenzie, Seagrass Watch

Nicolas Pilcher, Marine Research Foundation (MRF)

Tara Whitty, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Simon Woodley

The Dugong & Seagrass Research Toolkit is a:

  • Decision support tool for research into dugong, seagrass and associated human communities.
  • Standardized method for assessing dugong populations and seagrass distribution and status.
  • Dynamic toolkit for marine natural resource managers, decision makers (both government and NGOs) and researchers.

Exposed seagrass meadows during low tide in the Philippines.